I am just uploading here a mockup that I made of a slide2answer implementation that I'd like to see. I hope you wouldn't consider this as me mindlessly exploiting you guys asking for lots of things. Its just for you to use, if ever u need UI ideas.

EDIT: Oh BTW, my portrait mode in forced rotation worked perfectly for me after a restart. As for the 'silence ring' issue, although it is necessary, for it is not a show stopper as I just use the flip to silence feature.